Dallas Cowboys: Tony Romo is Still on the Cowboys’ Roster. What’s the Hold Up?
By Ben Davila
As the soap opera known as the Dallas Cowboys continues, confusion still reigns as to why Tony Romo remains on the roster.
You have to hand it to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. While it is not difficult to keep the team front and center in the local news rotation, Jerry manages to do it with a certain panache. Granted, some of the cast and supporting characters like to help. But Jerry remains the undisputed ringmaster. It is a role he settled into back in 1989 and grew more and more comfortable with as years passed.
The difference this year is that it happens to involve the most popular, polarizing figure in DFW sports history. That would be former franchise/current backup quarterback, Tony Romo. In fact, just eleven days ago, we were all under the impression that Romo would be granted his outright release. The open arms of the Houston Texans or Denver Broncos awaited.
But at the NFL’s eleventh hour, someone put a halt to everything. We can only ascertain that that someone is Jerry Jones. Great! Perhaps a trade was in the works. Dallas would get their draft pick, and another team gets the Cowboys’ quarterback and his salary. But then the weekend passed, and then the next weekend, and still, as of today, nothing.
So what gives? It’s apparent that there were likely no trade offers for Romo. I mean, why trade for him when you can wait for his release? No NFL front office worth their salt will part with assets just to acquire a thirty-six-year-old quarterback with an injury history longer than Adam “Pacman” Jones’s police rap sheet. It’s just not a sound business strategy, no matter how much Romo may have left in his tank.
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So what else is motivating this? I have only begun to hear this on local sports talk radio since the saga began, but it’s something I’ve been saying since the season ended. In true Jerry Jones fashion, he is trying to have his cake and eat it, too. In other words, don’t be surprised to see Tony Romo on the active roster come training camp.
From a purely contractual standpoint, it makes sense. If you’re not going to get anything in a trade, why part with him when you don’t have to? If second year quarterback Dak Prescott falters out of the gate next season or gets hurt, you’d have an elite starter with Romo coming off the bench.
Yes, I know this sounds ridiculous. But as Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio explains, the thought of Romo playing in Houston, flourishing in Houston, and relegating the Cowboys to second-class Texan citizenship might just be too much for Jerry to bear. In essence, Jerral Wayne Jones will yet again prove to everyone that the Cowboys image is more important to him than Cowboys championships.
This is a clear attempt to hedge his bets against a sophomore slump from Prescott. But even then, if Romo is on the training camp roster, we have no idea what this will do to the locker room or the coaching staff. Every tiny Prescott misstep will have the Romo camp champing at the bit to get practice reps and playing time. The media will be complicit in this. The fans will join in. And if we’re looking at the situation and comparing apples to apples, Tony Romo is probably the better quarterback when healthy.
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But there’s the rub: “when healthy“. In short, it’s a mess. It also doesn’t speak to the impact of the relationship between Romo and the Jones family. This could evolve from highly awkward to unnecessarily acrimonious. This business is cutthroat enough as it is. When personal feelings enter the equation, it cannot be good for either side. No one necessarily owes anyone anything, but with that said, Jerry needs to “do right” and let Tony Romo go.